


holding onto gravity

by nxpenthe



Series: jigsaws, love letters [7]
Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 15:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19771195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nxpenthe/pseuds/nxpenthe
Summary: where every time your heart gets broken you lose a piece of it that's equivalent to the pain. eventually, when you reach heartbreak, you can no longer feel love or give love.in which yerim loves and loves and loves





	holding onto gravity

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for gaywrongs for beta'ing <3 i love you, and for gaywrongs & hyerewolf for putting up with my break of dawn nonsense.
> 
> title inspired by the song of the same name by nell

Yerim is five when she first feels heartbreak.  
  


Her mother yells at her for the first time – an accident involving a friend and a valuable glass vase that had been placed too close to the edge. Her mother had been pushed to the precipice alongside the jar, her voice swelling with anger, quivering with only the slightest trace of worry. Her then friend, a boy she doesn't even remember the name of now, had blamed her for the broken glass, its delicate patterns scattered across the floor of her house in time with her mother's approaching footsteps.

  
All Yerim remembers is the sound of crunching glass, the blur of angry words no longer coherent in her mind, and the burn of frustrated tears that came from the injustice of her position. All she wanted to do was to show the valuable glass jar and its pretty patterns that lit the room with colored lights to her dear friend – to share the wonder of the vibrant world she saw through shiny young eyes.

  
Instead, she's met with the sound of heartache.

  
Her chest crumbles first, like the feeling of holding her breath for too long underwater. It crumples and folds, softly, slowly, like sand flowing down an hourglass placed on its side, light and freeing. She hadn’t felt the weight of her heart before and yet, when it trickled down into the expansive nothingness in the form of guilty tears, Yerim could feel truly how much love she had and how much love she received.

  
The feeling stops only when her friend is set away back home, head stooped in shame at callous betrayal, and her mother, calmed, places a hand on her head and pulls her into a tight hug.

  
Apology works as a bandage wrapped tightly around her concaved chest, but the neon of the world had faded to a saturated vivacity, muted colors spread through colored glass.

  
\--

  
Love is nothing but a feeling that people are meant to give and give and give, but people are cruel – they are selfish, so while Yerim gives and gives and gives her entirety to those around her, they take and take and take.

  
“You’re an idiot.”

  
Hyejoo appears in her life when she’s thirteen. They end up in the same class, lab partners to be precise.

  
“Am I?” Yerim chuckles because although the words are biting, they are not unkind. Hyejoo simply grunts, pushing one of the worksheets in her direction before placing a cheek on the palm of her hand and staring pointedly out the window.

  
“Yeah,” Hyejoo breathes out once more, frustration evident.

  
They’ve had this conversation many times before. While Yerim tries to give, Hyejoo doesn’t take. She refuses to take a glance at the heart that lies so clearly on her sleeve, brightening and glistening, throbbing with the love of the world that gathers in one softened center. And while Yerim would love to only hold Hyejoo tightly, to tell her that she loved her in a way that immediate friendship to manifest, Hyejoo refuses to reciprocate.

  
Hyejoo keeps her heart locked tightly. She refuses to love because she is afraid of it disappearing forever, and so she refuses to let the love in her chest unfurl and instead views the world through increasingly bright colors – neon, sparkly, beautiful.

  
“Hyejoo, do you love anyone?”

  
They’re sitting on the edge of the playground, watching as their other friends run around each other in a wild game of tag. Chaewon stumbles, only to be caught by a watchful Hyunjin who’s quick to hoist her upwards with an armed wrapped around her thin waist. Heejin takes the opportunity to slap her hand across Hyunjin’s back, the place between where shoulder blades meet, and takes off with a speed they’ve never seen before.

  
Yerim sits on the side because she had twisted her ankle attempting to climb a tree to place a fallen chick back into its nest, and Hyejoo sits with her because she’d rather be in the shade resting then getting sweaty under the yellow hue of the sun.

  
“What?” The question takes Hyejoo by surprise. Yerim watches as her face contorts, teeth biting down on her bottom lip as her eyes narrow, unfocused. “Do I love anyone?”

  
“Yeah,” Yerim repeats. She pulls a blade of grass up by the roots, peeling back the hearty shell of the weed until the small velvety core of it remains; Hyejoo remains unperturbed, shrugging only once before giving a flippant answer.

  
“I don’t think so.”

  
“Oh.”

  
Yerim lets the soft core of the grass flutter down between her fingers, watching as it melds back with its brethren only to be swept up once again by a stray gust of wind and blown onto the sticky asphalt of the playground.

  
An apology leaves her lips before she can stop herself.

  
\--

  
Perhaps Yerim was cursed from the moment of birth; she had been cocooned in love, basking in its bright radiance from her first cry to her earliest memory to where she stood now. Her mother kissed her forehead every night, and her father pulled her into the warmest hugs when he returned from work. They were a clockwork of routines, and though affection may stray from the verbose, their actions reminded Yerim that love is what kept the world so lively and bright, and love is what made her give and give and give because she wants everyone to love.

  
Yerim gives because that’s all she knows how to do.

  
She wants everyone to feel the warmth she feels when her mother bakes her her favorite desserts, or the swell of the symphony playing in her ears when Hyunjin finally laughs at a horrible pun she makes, or the fluttering feeling in her chest – like the wings of a butterfly caught in the edges of a storm – that appears whenever Hyejoo rests her head against her shoulder.

  
She craves the sort of romantic love that she sees in her parents; the graze of fingers that linger far too long, the smile lines that crease their faces all so gently as though cupping the smile that forms at the center in a protective mold. Yerim wants – hopes – for the love that they share to enter her own life one day.

  
(They say it feels like a trail of blazing stars.

  
They say it feels like the smallest whispers of a mouse.

  
They say it happens slowly and surely, the deliberate footsteps of a tortoise.

  
They say it happens like a flash of fireworks – vivid, bright,  _ there _ .)

  
\--

  
She is sixteen when she meets Vivi.

  
It's through Vivi that she realizes that colors aren't forever, but simply shifting until they meld together, blurring the edges of shapes and shades. Vivi’s hand remains firm in its shake, and she smiles as anyone else would. Yet there's an unsettling feeling that creeps into Yerim’s blood from the woman who looks so very beautiful and yet so very sad.

  
They become friends through Yerim's willpower alone. Vivi tries to explain that she can no longer feel love – affection, yes, liking and all the such, but the warmth of an embrace is simply just that, and the physical swell of her chest is replaced with a stoic smile where the muscles move from memory more so than instinct. But Vivi is so beautiful when she smiles, and Yerim knows that when Vivi had loved, she had loved so deeply – so wholeheartedly – she had lost her entire heart in only one heartbreak.

  
They talk again for a longer time when they work together stocking books from the local library. Yerim is there for her high school volunteer hours, and Vivi works part-time to afford schooling in a foreign country. Perhaps she should have known not to test fate as they stock romance novels side-by-side, speaking with hushed tones.

  
"Is it possible to give a part of your heart to someone else?" Yerim asks, nonchalantly flipping open a novel and skimming a page before placing it back.

  
Vivi stills only for a moment before the motions start again: stop, pick up a book, slide it into place, repeat.

  
"Yes."

  
Yerim beams despite the other’s hesitation, "Oh! Then let me give you a part of mine! I've always liked pastel – that's what I heard happens when you lose all your heart anyways. I don't mind."

  
Vivi smiles kindly at her, the corners of her eyes crinkled. The color of Vivi's eyes are a pretty brown, deep, much too dark for someone of her age.

  
"It doesn't work like that."

  
"Oh." Yerim falters, shoulders slouching.

  
"Once you lose your heart, it's gone forever," Vivi continues. Her arms move rhythmically, gaze shifting from Yerim's crestfallen face back to the row of numbers and systems and words and poetry and fantasies. "You can try and give your heart to someone – many have attempted – but once you forget how to love, you lose it forever."

  
"That's not very fair," she mumbles. The books feel much heavier in her slackened arms.

  
"It isn't very fair at all," Vivi agrees. "But there's nothing that can be done."

  
Yerim falls silent, unusually so. They finish their work in quiet peace, the lull of the library a backdrop to the ticking in her chest that matches the ticking of the clock. Once the arm strikes twelve, she bids Vivi goodbye, stepping into the dying light of the sun that bids the day goodbye. The shine of the moon, still cloaked in a veil of purple and orange, shines down upon her in a cloudy haze; milky white clouds dance through the pink and blue, melting into the wonders of the world in a pretty shade of pastel.

  
Tomorrow, she could tell Vivi that she was right.

  
The world is much prettier in pastel.

  
(And then maybe Vivi would give her that same pretty smile, unsaid apology heavy on her tongue.)

  
\--

  
“Stop being so nice to people.”

  
They’re loitering in front of a convenience store, just the two of them this time. Chaewon had been grounded for lighting her kitchen on fire for the nth time in an attempt to scramble some eggs, and Heejin and Hyunjin had given some equally horrible excuse, hiding interlocked fingers behind them as they vibrated in anxiousness, like kids hiding some badly hidden secret.

  
Yerim thinks they’re cute. Hyejoo grunts.

  
“Why?” She prods gently, resting her back against Hyejoo’s sturdy shoulder. She bites down on the cone, crunching sounds muffling her ears as Hyejoo shifts, making sure Yerim is comfortable.

  
Hyejoo hesitates. Yerim continues chewing.

  
“Because…” The words slide through slowly, pulled by an invisible string that tear the words mangled and ugly from between Hyejoo’s lips. “Because eventually you’ll lose your heart.”

  
\--

  
Yerim’s eighteen when the world finally loses its spark. The pastels are no longer soft and warm, but tired.

_  
(Hyunjin had gone to a different college across the country, and she had watched as Heejin cried goodbye, the two promising to call whenever possible.) _

  
The vivid blue of the sky had lost its shine, watered down to pale hues that hardly resembled its original source, and the black of Hyejoo’s hair stood in sharp contrast to the pink of the evening sun.

_  
(The nice old grandpa who owned a newspaper stand on the side of the road had passed away. His son had smiled kindly at her, handing her the juice she always bought whenever she walked by.) _

  
The world no longer glistened and shined but pulsed quietly beneath instead; the ticking in her chest became a constant now, slowly but surely, each grain of sand filtering from her heart down to the Earth until they were absorbed by blackened ground.

_  
(She was there when Sooyoung drank herself into a stupor after Jiwoo had broken up with her, the echoes of forever beating mercilessly against deafened ears.) _

  
And with a final crack, she breaks.

  
\--

  
Yerim is nineteen when she realizes why Hyejoo refuses to love.

  
“My father proposed to my mother when she wasn’t sure,” Hyejoo told her one day. They are in college now, freshmen, a little tipsy from the wine Chaewon had managed to steal from Haseul’s apartment. Hyejoo had pulled from her from the chaos of the room to the serene night visible from the roof of the dorm. “My mother told me they got married because she was afraid of breaking his heart. He was so in love with her, apparently.”

  
“Oh.”

  
Hyejoo continues, “But it didn’t work. The more she stayed with him, the more it hurt her. And eventually she lost her heart pretending to be in love. And when he found out, he was heartbroken. And then they had me, born with only half a heart.”

  
The stars pulse white.

  
Hyejoo stops talking.

  
Yerim feels nothing.

  
She feels absolutely nothing.

  
She had always been afraid of what would happen if she truly lost everything. She had expected pain – an unbearable amount of pain from the gaping hole in her chest. She expected to be tired, like Vivi was, tired and sad and hurting. Instead, she lies on her back, feeling every pebble and grain of loose gravel press into her skin as she watches the stars sparkle.

  
The world doesn’t change too much. The stars are still their beautiful selves, white against black. Hyejoo is still beautiful, black against white.

  
Hyejoo is still so very beautiful, but Yerim no longer feels it. She knows Hyejoo is beautiful because Hyejoo has nice lips, a pretty smile, and long hair that brushes against her wrist. She knows Hyejoo is beautiful because for as long as she loved Hyejoo, Hyejoo had never taken her heart.

  
Never. Not until now that is.

  
“Yerim?”

  
Yerim continues to look upwards at the black sky and white stars.

  
“Yes?”

  
“I’ve broken your heart, haven’t I?”Hyejoo’s voice is soft, barely audible.

  
Yerim no longer feels the tremors that would accompany such an intimate whisper.

  
“Yes. I think you did.”

  
Hyejoo remains quiet. Yerim knows that inside Hyejoo is hurting. Yerim knows that Hyejoo’s heart is breaking.

  
“I’m sorry.”

  
Yerim sighs. “It’s not your fault.”

  
Hyejoo’s fingers brush against her own, uncertain. Yerim remains limp as they tangle together, skin brushing skin.

  
“I love you, Yerim.”

  
Yerim had loved and loved and loved. She gave what she could, and she never took – she would never take a heart, no matter how small the piece. And yet, when Hyejoo crumbles, finally telling her the words she’s been wishing – has been yearning, praying, wanting – for years, Yerim finally takes.

  
She takes the half of Hyejoo’s heart that’s been so tightly locked.

  
“The stars are nice.”

  
Yerim glances at Hyejoo before returning her gaze to the black sky and white stars.

  
“Yeah.”

  
The two lay together on cold concrete. They watch the white stars beat against black skies, Hyejoo’s warm fingers increasingly limp until they too resemble Yerim’s.

  
They watch and watch and watch as the world around them spins, as people laugh and love and take and break.

  
They watch as the white lights of the city glisten with life they no longer know for both their hearts are broken and gone.

  
Yerim who had loved, been loved, and craved love no longer could love.

  
And Hyejoo who never knew love until the very end had taken Yerim’s heart only to lose her own.

**Author's Note:**

> somewhat similar to the comic "hearts for sale" by miyuli.
> 
> written in the dead of night and early evenings (~3hrs?) i wish i had more time to expand upon the idea.  
> either way, thank you for reading
> 
> cc/twitter: chuchuuwuo


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